Often the most significant social changes happen thanks to a few grassroots activists, or even just one scrappy police chief. Let’s hope this becomes the case in the fight against rampant opiate addiction. A small New England town is slowly but surely making progress toward reducing the number of heroin users on the street. And they don’t discriminate against morphine and oxycodone abusers either. Drug users are being encouraged to step forward without the threat of severe punishment, or any punishment at all. Unless you consider rehab a form of punishment.
Honesty Is the Best Policy
Through a program implemented by Police Chief Leonard Campanello in Gloucester, Massachusetts, those who possess illegal drugs and the paraphernalia associated with them are legally allowed to turn themselves (and their substances) over to law enforcement without risk of arrest. The catch? They must also simultaneously agree to immediately go into treatment. Once they accept the terms, they are assigned a sponsor of sorts, usually a volunteer from the community who is in recovery and supports them during the process of creating a treatment plan with a qualified clinician. Costs have been surprisingly minimal. A combination of funds seized in drug busts and benefits provided by the state to those without proper health insurance or financial resources cover the overhead of the program.
According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 17 people have so far taken the cops up on their offer. That’s not a jaw-dropping number but it does trump the number of deaths resulting from drug overdoses in Gloucester in the past year. And the program only officially began June 1. Several nearby towns have picked up on the its success, even big sister Boston, whose mayor has publicly suggested launching the concept there, too.
What makes this program unique compared to, for example, drug courts is its voluntary nature. The drug user isn’t forced into rehab as a result of being charged with a crime. The program is all about confessing a problem, rather than a crime.
Stopping the Revolving Door
In the big picture, this policy is also a clear, and potentially smarter alternative, to simply continuing to overcrowd America’s prisons with addicts. Countries like Ireland are discussing implementing a similar policy to battle their own widespread heroin problem. In Illinois, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez recently announced her office will defer more low-level drug offenders to treatment programs. She cited the revolving door of the criminal justice system for trying treatment over jail time.
All I keep thinking is, why hasn’t this been done sooner? It makes a whole lot of really, really common sense. There is always the risk of people who truly aren’t at bottom and/or ready to get better taking advantage of the system to avoid prison time but that’s all the more reason to make the treatment as high-quality as possible.
If given the chance to get sober in a drug-free setting that’s built around rehabilitation, habitual heroin addicts may actually experience some of the relief and true recovery required to really want to stay sober. If this policy really gets into gear, Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello may leave quite a legacy.
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